LATROBE, Pa. -- The Steelers, who I've heard hail from the town with the great football team, have been anything but great of late as they embark on their 82nd season Friday at Saint Vincent College with an 8-8-is-enough mindset.
Ramon Foster put it best at minicamp last month: "That's enough. Seriously."
It really is. But before anyone can chase Johnny High Society back to the nightclubs of Cleveland or Vegas or College Station or wherever TMZ cameras roam, Mike Tomlin, Kevin Colbert, the rest of the staff and all 90 players who will report to Saint Vincent College on Friday come with some compelling concerns.
Here are my top top five, in descending order and focused on the early portion of camp:
5. DRI ARCHER
He's the consensus pre-camp pick to run away with the Baron Batch Award for greatest hype, and chances are he'll earn a good bit of that. When you've got 4.2 speed, some of the best scouts had seen in any NFL draft, you're going to run away with a lot of things.
What's more, Tomlin just couldn't get enough of the kid at OTAs and minicamp. One day, he'd line up at tailback and head up the middle, the next he was at wide receiver. Wherever he went, the constant was the head coaching tailing him. "That's it, Thirteen! I see you!" was as commonly heard a phrase as any on the South Side.
That'll be fun, but here's hoping Tomlin and Todd Haley don't pile up too much too fast. Natural speed still needs to be accompanied by natural instincts on a football field. Overwhelming him with multiple chapters in the playbook as soon as he gets to Latrobe won't help anyone.
"I'm not worried," Archer assured me when I raised that topic a couple weeks ago. "The more different things I do, the more dangerous I believe I can be."
Just go easy. On the hype, too.
4. DEFENSE U.
Talking about piling up a lot to learn: This defense will be younger, faster and more dynamic. But as Troy Polamalu blithely put it during his annual cameo at OTAs, "We could put Usain Bolt and the whole track team out there, but that doesn't make us a good football team." And he's right, of course. Because Ryan Shazier, Stephon Tuitt, Jarvis Jones and any other young player with a realistic shot at cracking the starting 11 will have to get it all together in a Bolt-level hurry.
I have no doubt Shazier will. He's strikingly bright and, just as important, illustrated that seamlessly in the offseason workouts. He was humble in learning from Lawrence Timmons but also confident and aggressive in his play. That's a rare breed.
"I feel like I have a long way to go," Shazier said in the final week of those workouts, "but I also feel like I'm ready for the challenge."
You will love this player, Pittsburgh.
No one can say that with certainty for Tuitt, who might not even start. Or Jones, for that matter, whose career sack total has to stay at 1 until at least the Cleveland game.
3. MARKUS WHEATON
Wheaton will be the most important player to watch in the early going. Not so much because of what he can do but what happens if he can't.
Do you really want Lance Moore to move to the outside?
Moore assured me he'd be "absolutely comfortable" doing that, but he's been so sound in the slot, that would be nuts.
Do you really want to see if Darrius Heyward-Bey has finally found his hands?
Based on his summer sessions, trust me, you don't.
Martavis Bryant?
Too young, too raw. There might be something there in the future, but it became eminently clear through the summer that Bryant was anything but a Tomlin favorite.
Wheaton has to step up, mangled fingers and all. He's got the talent, for sure. It was at this same early stage of camp last summer that he first flashed it for the Steelers, and there were times during the season, as well. Ben Roethlisberger loves him, too, calling him "a guy capable of big things."
That might well be, but "big" will have to mean a mammoth upgrade over six catches and standing on the sideline in sweats.
"The spot isn't mine," Wheaton said at one point this summer. He was speaking with modesty, for sure, but he'd better have been wrong.
2. SECONDARY CONCERN
So wait, the secondary replaced Ryan Clark with Mike Mitchell, but brought everyone else back a year older and at least theoretically slower, and it's somehow going to be significantly improved?
We'll see.
The Mitchell signing was terrific, and not just because it was so very un-Steelers-like to go that hotly after a single target. He's gifted enough to make plays even when he errs, and he's nasty enough to restore some of what was lost when Clark's career plunged off the Bristol cliff last fall.
But Polamalu's health always will be a worry. Ike Taylor is coming off a season in which, whether or not he feigns disgust with taking a pay cut, he's lucky to still have an NFL job. Cortez Allen didn't play enough to matter much. And Willie Gay ... well, Gay was good, but he should never be your best. Some advanced metrics indicate that actually was the case.
If any of these defensive backs, or even youngsters Shamarko Thomas and Shaquille Richardson, are doing good things early on, it could have a carryover resonance.
But high atop the list is Taylor, and it sure seems like he knows it.
"I'm feeling good again. I am," he was saying recently, no smile, no playfulness to his tone. "This is coming fast, but so am I."
1. KEEP BEN UPRIGHT
Nothing means more to this franchise at any time, in any setting. Never overthink to what degree No. 7 is No. 1 around here.
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